Then let it decay, thank God I know
thank who
thank who
Thank you, O lord, beyond my eye
the path must lead somewhere
the path
the path
thru the rotting shit dump, thru the Angelico orgies
Beep, emit a burst of babe and begone
perhaps that’s the answer, wouldn’t know till you had a kid
I dunno, never had a kid never will at the rate I’m going
Yes, I should be good, I should get married
find out what it’s all about
but I can’t stand these women all over me
smell of Naomi
erk, I’m stuck with this familiar rotting ginsberg
can’t stand boys even anymore
can’t stand
can’t stand
and who wants to get fucked up the ass, really?
Immense seas passing over
the flow of time
and who wants to be famous and sign autographs like a movie star
I want to know
I want I want ridiculous to know to know WHAT rotting ginsberg
I want to know what happens after I rot
because I’m already rotting
my hair’s falling out I’ve got a belly I’m sick of sex
my ass drags in the universe I know too much
and not enough
I want to know what happens after I die
well I’ll find out soon enough
do I really need to know now?
is that any use at all use use use
death death death death death
god god god god god god god the Lone Ranger
the rhythm of the typewriter
What can I do to Heaven by pounding on Typewriter
I’m stuck change the record Gregory ah excellent he’s doing just that
and I am too conscious of a million ears
at present creepy ears, making commerce
too many pictures in the newspapers
faded yellowed press clippings
I’m going away from the poem to be a drak contemplative
trash of the mind
trash of the world
man is half trash
all trash in the grave
What can Williams be thinking in Paterson, death so much on him
so soon so soon
Williams, what is death?
Do you face the great question now each moment
or do you forget at breakfast looking at your old ugly love in the face
are you prepared to be reborn
to give release to this world to enter a heaven
or give release, give release
and all be done—and see a lifetime—all eternity—gone over
into naught, a trick question proposed by the moon to the answerless earth
No Glory for man! No Glory for man! No glory for me!
No me!
No point writing when the spirit doth not lead
New York, 1959
Lysergic Acid
It is a multiple million eyed monster
it is hidden in all its elephants and selves
it hummeth in the electric typewriter
it is electricity connected to itself, if it hath wires
it is a vast Spiderweb
and I am on the last millionth infinite tentacle of the spiderweb, a worrier
lost, separated, a worm, a thought, a self
one of the millions of skeletons of China
one of the particular mistakes
I allen Ginsberg a separate consciousness
I who want to be God
I who want to hear the infinite minutest vibration of eternal harmony
I who wait trembling my destruction by that aethereal music in the fire
I who hate God and give him a name
I who make mistakes on the eternal typewriter
I who am Doomed
But at the far end of the universe the million eyed Spyder that hath no name
spinneth of itself endlessly
the monster that is no monster approaches with apples, perfume, railroads, television, skulls
a universe that eats and drinks itself
blood from my skull
Tibetan creature with hairy breast and Zodiac on my stomach this sacrificial victim unable to have a good time
My face in the mirror, thin hair, blood congested in streaks down beneath my eyes, cocksucker, a decay, a talking lust
a snaeap, a snarl, a tic of consciousness in infinity
a creep in the eyes of all Universes
trying to escape my Being, unable to pass on to the Eye
I vomit, I am in a trance, my body is seized in convulsion, my stomach crawls, water from my mouth, I am here in Inferno
dry bones of myriad lifeless mummies naked on the web, the Ghosts, I am a Ghost
I cry out where I am in the music, to the room, to whomever near, you, Are you God?
No, do you want me to be God?
Is there no Answer?
Must there always be an Answer? you reply,
and were it up to me to say Yes or No—
Thank God I am not God! Thank God I am not God!
But that I long for a Yes of Harmony to penetrate
to every corner of the universe, under every condition whatsoever
a Yes there Is … a Yes I Am … a Yes You Are … a We
A We
and that must be an It, and a They, and a Thing with No nswer
It creepeth, it waiteth, it is still, it is begun, it is the Horns of Battle it is Multiple Sclerosis
it is not my hope
it is not my death at Eternity
it is not my word, not poetry
beware my Word
It is a Ghost Trap, woven by priest in Sikkim or Tibet
a crossframe on which a thousand threads of differing color
are strung, a spiritual tennis racket
in which when I look I see aethereal lightwaves radiate
bright energy passing round on the threads as for billions of years
the thread-bands magically changing hues one transformed to another as if the
Ghost Trap
were an image of the Universe in miniature
conscious sentient part of the interrelated machine.
making waves outward in Time to the Beholder
displaying its own image in miniature once for all
repeated minutely downward with endless variations throughout all of itself
it being all the same in every part
This image or energy which reproduces itself at the depths of space from the very Beginning
in what might be an O or an Aum
and trailing variations made of the same Word circles round itself in the same pattern as its original Appearance
creating a larger Image of itself throughout depths of Time
outward circling thru bands of faroff Nebulae & vast Astrologies
contained, to be true to itself, in a Mandala painted on an Elephant’s hide,
or in a photograph of a painting on the side of an imaginary Elephant which smiles, the how the Elephant looks is an irrelevant joke—
it might be a Sign held by a Flaming Demon, or Ogre of Transcience,
or in a photograph of my own belly in the void
or in my eye
or in the eye of the monk who made the Sign
or in its own Eye that stares on Itself at last and dies
and tho an eye can die
and tho my eye can die
the billion-eyed monster, the Nameless, the Answerless, the Hidden-from-me, the endless Being
one creature that gives birth to itself
thrills in its minutest particular, sees out of all eyes differently at once
One and not One moves on its own ways
I cannot follow
And I have made an image of the monste
r here
and I will make another
it feels like Cryptozooids
it creeps and undulates beneath the sea
it is coming to take over the city
it invades beneath every Consciousness
it is delicate as the Universe
it makes me vomit
because I am afraid I will miss its appearance
it appears anyway
it appears anyway in the mirror
it washes out of the mirror like the sea
it is myriad undulations
it washes out of the mirror and drowns the beholder
it drowns the world when
it drowns the world
it drowns in itself
it floats outward like a corpse filled with music
the noise of war in its head
a babe laugh in its belly
a scream of agony in the dark sea
a smile on the lips of a blind statue
it was there
it was not mine
I wanted to use it for myself
to be heroic
but it is not for sale to this consciousness
it goes its own way forever
it will complete all creatures
it will be the radio of the future
it will hear itself in time
it wants a rest
it is tired of hearing and seeing itself
it wants another form another victim
it wants me
it gives me good reason
it gives me reason to exist
it gives me endless answers
a consciousness to be separate and a consciousness to see
I am beckoned to be One or the other, to say I am both and be neither
it can take care of itself without me
it is Both Answerless (it answers not to that name)
it hummeth on the electric typewriter
it types a fragmentary word which is
a fragmentary word,
MANDALA
Gods dance on their own bodies
New flowers open forgetting Death
Celestial eyes beyond the heartbreak of illusion
I see the gay Creator
Bands rise up in anthem to the worlds
Flags and banners waving in transcendence
One image in the end remains myriad-eyed in Eternity
This is the Work! This is the Knowledge! This is the End of man!
Palo Alto, June 2, 1959
Magic Psalm
Because this world is on the wing and what cometh no man can know
O Phantom that my mind pursues from year to year descend from heaven to this shaking flesh
catch up my fleeting eye in the vast Ray that knows no bounds—Inseparable—Master—
Giant outside Time with all its falling leaves—Genius of the Universe—Magician in Nothingness where appear red clouds—
Unspeakable King of the roads that are gone—Unintelligible Horse riding out of the graveyard—Sunset spread over Cordillera and insect—Gnarl Moth—
Griever—Laugh with no mouth, Heart that never had flesh to die—Promise that was not made—Reliever, whose blood burns in a million animals wounded—
O Mercy, Destroyer of the World, O Mercy, Creator of Breasted Illusions, O Mercy, cacophanous warmouthed doveling, Come,
invade my body with the sex of God, choke up my nostrils with corruption’s infinite caress,
transfigure me to slimy worms of pure sensate transcendency I’m still alive,
croak my voice with uglier than reality, a psychic tomato speaking Thy million mouths,
Myriad-tongued my Soul, Monster or Angel, Lover that comes to fuck me forever—white gown on the Eyeless Squid—
Asshole of the Universe into which I disappear—Elastic Hand that spoke to Crane—Music that passes into the phonograph of years from another Millennium—Ear of the buildings of NY—
That which I believe—have seen—seek endlessly in leaf dog eye—fault always, lack—which makes me think—
Desire that created me, Desire I hide in my body, Desire all Man know Death, Desire surpassing the Babylonian possible world
that makes my flesh shake orgasm of Thy Name which I don’t know never will never speak—
Speak to Mankind to say the great bell tolls a golden tone on iron balconies in every million universe,
I am Thy prophet come home this world to scream an unbearable Name thru my 5 senses hideous sixth
that knows Thy Hand on its invisible phallus, covered with electric bulbs of death—
Peace, Resolver where I mess up illusion, Softmouth Vagina that enters my brain from above, Ark-Dove with a bough of Death.
Drive me crazy, God I’m ready for disintegration of my mind, disgrace me in the eye of the earth,
attack my hairy heart with terror eat my cock Invisible croak of deathfrog leap on me pack of heavy dogs salivating light,
devour my brain One flow of endless consciousness, I’m scared of your promise must make scream my prayer in fear—
Descend O Light Creator & Eater of Mankind, disrupt the world in its madness of bombs and murder,
Volcanos of flesh over London, on Paris a rain of eyes—truck-loads of angelhearts besmearing Kremlin walls—the skullcup of light to New York—
myriad jewelled feet on the terraces of Pekin—veils of electrical gas descending over India—cities of Bacteria invading the brain—the Soul escaping into the rubber waving mouths of Paradise—
This is the Great Call, this is the Tocsin of the Eternal War, this is the cry of Mind slain in Nebulae,
this is the Golden Bell of the Church that has never existed, this is the Boom in the heart of the sunbeam, this is the trumpet of the Worm at Death,
Appeal of the handless castrate grab Alm golden seed of Futurity thru the quake & volcan of the world—
Shovel my feet under the Andes, splatter my brains on the Sphinx, drape my beard and hair over Empire State Building,
cover my belly with hands of moss, fill up my ears with your lightning, blind me with prophetic rainbows
That I taste the shit of Being at last, that I touch Thy genitals in the palmtree,
that the vast Ray of Futurity enter my mouth to sound Thy Creation Forever Unborn, O Beauty invisible to my Century!
that my prayer surpass my understanding, that I lay my vanity at Thy foot, that I no longer fear Judgement over Allen of this world
born in Newark come into Eternity in New York crying again in Peru for human Tongue to psalm the Unspeakable,
that I surpass desire for transcendency and enter the calm water of the universe
that I ride out this wave, not drown forever in the flood of my imagination that I not be slain thru my own insane magic, this crime be punished in merciful jails of Death,
men understand my speech out of their own Turkish heart, the prophets aid me with Proclamation,
the Seraphim acclaim Thy Name, Thyself at once in one huge Mouth of Universe make meat reply.
June 1960
The Reply
God answers with my doom! I am annulled
this poetry blanked from the fiery ledger
my lies be answered by the worm at my ear
my visions by the hand falling over my eyes to cover them
from sight of my skeleton
my longing to be God by the trembling bearded jaw flesh
that covers my skull like monster-skin
Stomach vomiting out the soul-vine, cadaver on
the floor of a bamboo hut, body-meat crawling toward
its fate nightmare rising in my brain
The noise of the drone of creation adoring its Slayer, the yowp
of birds to the Infinite, dogbarks like the sound
of vomit in the air, frogs croaking Death at trees
I am a Seraph and I know not whither I go into the Void
I am a man and I know not whither I go into Death——
Christ Christ poor hopeless
lifted on the Cross between Dimension—
to see the Ever-Unknowable!
a dead gong shivers thru all flesh and a vast Being enters my
brain from afar that lives forever
None but the Presence too mighty to record! the Presence
in Death, before whom I am helpless
makes me change from Allen to a skull
Old One-Eye of dreams in which I do not wake but die—
hands pulled into the darkness by a frightful Hand
—the worm’s blind wriggle, cut—the plough
is God himself
What ball of monster darkness from before the universe
come back to visit me with blind command!
and I can blank out this consciousness, escape back
to New York love, and will
Poor pitiable Christ afraid of the foretold Cross,
Never to die—
Escape, but not forever—the Presence will come, the hour
will come, a strange truth enter the universe, death
show its Being as before
and I’ll despair that I forgot! forgot! my fate return,
tho die of it—
What’s sacred when the Thing is all the universe?
creeps to every soul like a vampire-organ singing behind
moonlit clouds—
poor being come squat
under bearded stars in a dark field in Peru
to drop my load—I’ll die in horror that I die!
Not dams or pyramids but death, and we to prepare for that
nakedness, poor bones sucked dry by His long mouth
of ants and wind, & our souls murdered to prepare
His Perfection!
The moment’s come, He’s made His will revealed forever
and no flight into old Being further than the stars will not
find terminal in the same dark swaying port
of unbearable music
No refuge in Myself, which is on fire
or in the World which is His also to bomb & Devour!
Recognise His might! Loose hold
of my hands—my frightened skull
—for I had chose self-love—
my eyes, my nose, my face, my cock, my soul—and now
the faceless Destroyer!
A billion doors to the same new Being!
The universe turns inside out to devour me!
and the mighty burst of music comes from out the inhuman
door—
June 1960
The End
I am I, old Father Fisheye that begat the ocean, the worm at my own ear, the serpent turning around a tree,
Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems Page 9
